Traffic 'chaos' if tunnel toll too high

Sydney will plunge into traffic chaos if motorists chose not to use the Lane Cove Tunnel because tolls are set too high, a local mayor says.

14 June 2006By Vera Devai

Sydney will plunge into traffic chaos if motorists chose not to use the Lane Cove Tunnel because tolls are set too high, a local mayor says.

Lane Cove Mayor Ian Longbottom on Wednesday addressed the first day of the parliamentary inquiry into the tunnel.

The upper house inquiry, headed by Christian Democrat Fred Nile, was established in November to examine the controversial Cross City Tunnel, but was extended to include the Lane Cove tunnel after a successful motion from the opposition.

The Lane Cove project has been besieged by complications after a section of the tunnel collapsed, leaving a gaping, 10 metre hole which almost swallowed a unit block.

Concerns have also been raised about tunnel pollution levels.

Mr Longbottom said that if the toll was more than $2.50 motorists would not use it.

Poor usage of the Cross City Tunnel, under central Sydney, has been blamed on the toll cost.

Three months ago, its operators, Cross City Motorway (CCM), temporarily halved the toll from $3.56 to $1.78, but it shot back to $3.50 earlier this month.

"(It would be) absolute chaos because there is going to be one lane of cars each way on Epping Road," he said.

"If people don't want to use the tunnel we will have gridlock on the surface."

The Lane Cove project comprises two 3.6km tunnels linking the Gore Hill Freeway with the M2 at North Ryde, with the aim of easing the increasing traffic flow through Sydney's north-west.

Mr Longbottom said he thought the tunnel needed three lanes of traffic in each direction instead of two.

"The contractor offered to take the money back, the upfront money, the $80 million (it gave to the government to secure the project) and give an extra lane each way, and the RTA refused that. I just think that is unconscionable," he said.